The Fish Is Off

by Kieran Mulvaney

Originally published in BBC Wildlife, October 1994.

---

The world's fisheries are in crisis. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), virtually every commercial fish species in every ocean and sea is "over exploited," "fully-exploited," or "depleted." Stocks in four of the world's 17 major fishing regions are seriously depleted, while catches in nine others are declining. At its 1993 Committee on Fisheries meeting, the FAO warned that fish production from most of the world's fisheries has reached or exceeded the levels at which fish stocks can regenerate themselves.

The FAO's statistics underscore the fact that the global marine fish catch has peaked and is now in decline. Between 1950 and 1960, the total recorded landings from commercial marine fisheries rose from approximately 20 million tonnes to 40 million tonnes; by 1989, this had climbed still further, to 89 million tonnes. Since then, however, it has fallen back slightly.

It is easy to be wise with hindsight, but the crisis has been a long time coming, and the warning signals have been there for many to see. Roughly twenty-five years ago, for example, the maximum catch ever taken of mackerel in the North Sea -- roughly one million tons in 1967 -- caused the stock to crash to one-tenth of its original level. The Norwegian stock of spring-spawning herring collapsed from a total of 10 million tons in the 1950s to virtually zero in the 1970. Similarly, a period of intense exploitation of anchoveta stocks off Peru in the early 1970s caused a collapse in the stock and, in 1977, a temporary ban on fishing.

As clear as the fact that such over-exploitation was leading inexorably to a global fisheries crisis were the fundamental, underlying factors responsible. In short, the problem can be summed up as being one of too many boats, with ever-increasing capacity, chasing too few -- and ever fewer -- fish.

The result was a cycle of self-destructive exploitation. Rising prices for fish led to more intense fishing and dwindling stocks. This in turn gave rise to still higher prices and thus even more intense exploitation. The inevitable consequence has been a spectacular collapse of many major fish stocks.

Initially, many of the stocks that collapsed were found in northern waters, where the largest fleets operated. As these stocks declined, northern fishing nations such as Canada, Japan and nations of what is now the European Union (EU) began to build larger, longer-range vessels -- particularly giant factory trawlers and purse-seiners -- which could venture further afield, principally into southern waters where stocks were not as heavily fished.

In an attempt to protect such stocks from predation by swarms of uninvited foreign fleets, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) provided for the extension of national jurisdiction over coastal waters to a distance of 200 miles. The idea was that empowering coastal states to assume control over the exploitation of an extended zone of coastal waters would provide them with a logical incentive to ensure that fish stocks in those waters would be properly conserved and managed for their own long-term interest.

Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out that way. Although UNCLOS has been generally recognised as a progressive piece of legislation, the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) provision created considerable problems of its own.

Firstly, at a time of immense economic pressure on the South, the governments of many Third World coastal nations, anxious to earn hard currency to service foreign debts, sold the right to fish in their waters to high-tech, foreign factory vessels. At the same time, encouraged by foreign aid programmes, many southern countries also acquired their own "modernised" fleets. The rationale for this fisheries "development" was that increased fish production would help local economies by providing more jobs and more food.

Instead, it has worsened the flow drain of resources from South to North: more fish from the waters of Less Developed Countries is now taken away from potential local consumers and sold, at a much higher price, to the dinner tables and livestock feedlots of the north.

Secondly, UNCLOS left all waters outside EEZs under no effective control whatsoever. As a result, in an attempt to escape national jurisdiction, many distant water fleets moved their operations to the high seas. However, because fish stocks in the open ocean are more dispersed than in coastal waters, these fleets turned to fishing gear and technology that covered wider areas and was less discriminate in its catch. In this way, UNCLOS contributed significantly to the scourge of large scale high seas driftnets, which, in addition to putting further pressure on some fish stocks, killed untold millions of marine mammals, seabird, turtles and non-target fish before being phased out following a series of resolutions passed by the United Nations General Assembly.

Thirdly, the 200-mile boundary is a purely arbitrary one which fish feel under no obligation to respect. Some fish stocks are found on the borders of two or more countries' EEZs, or across the boundaries of one or more EEZ and the high seas; other stocks migrate across the boundaries. The result is that these stocks have been subject to additional fishing pressure, exploited by at least one nation within the 200-mile zone and by unlimited numbers of vessels in international waters. The consequences, once again, were all too predictable, and in at least one case, tragic in their human, as well as environmental, cost.

The cod fishery of the Northwest Atlantic, focused on the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland, has for centuries been possibly the single most productive single fishery in the world. Indeed, the cod fishery was the primary motivation for Newfoundland's settlement in the 16th century. That same fishery now stands as a symbol of reckless folly, unlimited exploitation and flawed management.

In July 1992, in response to rapidly declining catches, the Canadian government was obliged to close the fishery totally to protect what remained of the stocks. Initially, the fishery was closed for X years, but it seems almost certain that it will remain so at least until the end of the century. Last year, the government went one step further, banning all recreational and food fishing. In the short term, the cost has been the loss of 20,000 jobs and a social welfare bill in excess of a billion dollars. In the longer term, with a way of life gone and no prospect of it returning any time in the near future, it is likely to lead to a massive migration of people in search of jobs, and the demise of entire communities.

The circumstances of the cod fishery made it exceptionally vulnerable to collapse. On the one hand, the Canadian government continued to set catch quotas well in excess of the limits recommended by fisheries scientists. But in addition, the continental shelf on the Grand Banks -- the area of greatest productivity of marine life -- itself straddles the 200-mile limit, proving an irresistible magnet not only for the Newfoundland fishing fleet but also the massive distant water vessels which came, primarily, from the nations of Western Europe.

The fishery's collapse was instrumental in Canada pushing the question of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. Unable to reach any conclusions, the Summit's Agenda 21 mandated States to establish a separate conference dedicated to addressing this issue. The first session of the United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks took place in New York in July 1993, and the second session followed in March 1994; the third, and final scheduled, session is set for August (although the conference may yet be extended into 1995 or even beyond).

At the outset of the conference process, hopes were high in at least some quarters that it would lead to positive and possibly dramatic progress towards tackling the situation head-on. There was much talk of livelihoods and ecosystems at risk, and the need to pull together to avert the impending crisis. Halfway through the second session, however, much of the optimism began to evaporate, swept away by a cynical tide of nations pointing fingers and painting themselves as blameless victims of other countries' misdirected policies.

Far from joining together, nations have split broadly into two camps, coastal states and distant water nations, each side arguing that it is the other which should be subject to further restrictions. Some coastal states, Peru and Canada in particular, have threatened to take the law into their own hands and take unilateral steps to effectively extend their jurisdiction beyond their EEZs, boarding and seizing vessels which are fishing on threatened stocks.

Such action is understandable, given that distant water nations are free to continue fishing on stocks which some coastal states have banned their nationals from exploiting. But blaming the crisis on the high seas fleets ignores the fact that coastal states have been responsible for ninety per cent of the world's fish catch and are at least as much to blame.

As long as governments try to absolve themselves of blame, the global fisheries crisis is not going to go away. Indeed, even as fisheries decline, governments are continuing to subsidise an increase in fishing capacity. Bigger, more capital-intensive fleets, equipped with the latest fish extraction technology, are rolling out of the shipyards of Germany, Spain, Norway, Korea, Japan, the USA and elsewhere.

Down that road lies ongoing disaster. The overriding global trend is painfully evident: fisheries -- and the communities and economies reliant on them -- will continue to collapse, with devastating consequences, as long as they are operated by a "boom and bust" mentality. Runaway competition, and the greedy global grab for the remaining fish stocks, must give way to greater cooperation. What is needed is a precautionary approach to fisheries management that accepts that fisheries must adapt to the marine ecosystem -- not the other way around.

Such an approach runs squarely counter to the dominant economic philosophy of market-driven exploitation of natural resources. The transition to a more sustainable industry will not be easy. But the alternative will be worse.